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Comment by bradbot | Hacker News Reader

Is it possible to transport wind / solar energy across the country via high powered transmission lines?

Yes, and it's already done today; for instance, in Brazil these high power transmission lines transport wind power from the northeast region (which has lots of wind due to favorable geography) to the southeast region (where most of the electricity consumption is). The total distance is on the order of 2000 km.

(A fun fact: many of these high power transmission lines were originally to send power from the hydroelectric power plants in the southeast region to the water-starved northeast region. With the rapid expansion of wind power in the northeast region, the usual direction of the flow has reversed, and it's not uncommon for that wind power to provide over a quarter of the power for the whole country.)

Genuinely curious - why is wind power being cancelled in the North East because it isn't cost competitive, if it's so easy to do?

https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-orsted-cancellation...

you're confusing the northeast of brazil, which is what cesar was talking about, with the northeast of the usa

these are not just in different countries but in vastly different climates in different hemispheres

the exact page you linked in your comment literally answers your question: 'due to problems with supply chains, higher interest rates and a failure to obtain the amount of tax credits the company wanted. ... High inflation, supply chain disruptions and the rising cost of capital and building materials are making projects more expensive while developers are trying to get the first large U.S. offshore wind farms opened.'

maybe you should have read it

please don't post random bullshit without respect to whether it's true or not

It’s strange because wind is supposedly overwhelmingly cheaper and better, yet even with tons of government subsidies and political will behind it, it still can’t be built. Wouldn’t something truly more cost effective be easy to build because it’s cheaper? Clearly something doesn’t add up.

> It’s strange because wind is supposedly overwhelmingly cheaper and better

There's two kinds of wind power: onshore and offshore. Their costs are different, with onshore being cheaper. The ones in Brazil are all onshore, while the one in the article you linked to is offshore. In the USA, offshore is even more complicated because of the Jones Act (it needs specialized ships to transport and erect the structures, while onshore needs only common cranes).

obviously enough, numerous projects that are profitable when you can finance them at 1% become unprofitable when you have to finance them at 6%, particularly when you're competing with incumbent assets financed at 1%

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

feb 02022, 0.08% interest. since august, 5.33%

nothing is easy to build in the usa; it's halfway to being zimbabwe

Because the Jones Act of 1920 prevents use of the existing European installation ships so they have to start from scratch in uncompetitive American shipyards.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/charlotte/news/2023/04/03/t...

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/rust-buckets-how-jones-...

this is just one of many factors, and one that was understood by oersted when they originally started the project; the article mentions others that are more relevant

in particular, you should expect to see many, many cancelled projects across the entire economy with the interest rate hikes the usa put in place

obviously none of this is relevant to brazil

There are mild externalities assumed and feared about offshore wind, despite it being pretty good in a multitude of ways. States are playing a dumb game, because we would be better off if there was lots of offshore wind, but each state individually is better off having offshore wind SOMEWHERE ELSE.

For example, here in maine, our premier engineering school has spent two decades now being a premier wind energy investment and research institution, and we have minted hundreds and hundreds of trained people into the field, yet our Democrat governor still decided to sign a bill that bans offshore wind, something that Orono has explicitly invested into for years.

Our state desperately needs new generation to bring power costs down, but there's no real incentive for anyone to do so (why build new supply to bring down your own revenue?) and apparently the state government has zero interest to help itself there.

Ignore the sibling comment, it is definitely possible, typically via HVDC transmission. With 3% losses per 1000km, HVDC transmission of variable renewable energy is absolutely part of our future energy systems.

Wind is especially well suited to this - to a certain extent it's always windy SOMEWHERE whereas with solar you ain't generating any at night, no matter what.

> whereas with solar you ain't generating any at night, no matter what.

Nitpicking: that's only the case for photovoltaics. Solar thermal can store the heat for a while, and keep generating even after the sun goes down.

solar thermal is dead tho

just like other thermal power plants, it's too expensive to compete with pv and wind

Sun Cable, formerly known as PowerLink, is an ambitious idea that involves sending solar power via an undersea cable 4,200 kilometers (2,610 miles) from Darwin, Australia, to Singapore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link

No, because of physics you lose more power the longer distance it travels. It is also very expensive and difficult to build a network that can move power great distances to where it's needed given how dense the areas that need it are (major cities).

You can certainly get it to places closer, then shift those areas' power to farther away places, etc.

China has a large network of HVDC lines. Unfortunately, due to how the Chinese power market works, they're mostly underutilized, even in times of high power stress.

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